We know fictional worlds are not real.
And yet, we mourn characters who never existed.
We feel nostalgia for places we have never been.
We carry choices made in games as if they say something true about who we are.
This is not a failure of reason.
It is a feature of the human mind.
The Brain Does Not Care Where Meaning Comes From
Psychologically, the brain does not separate “real” and “fictional” experiences in the way we like to think it does.
What it responds to is:
- emotional coherence
- narrative structure
- perceived agency
- consequence and continuity
When a fictional world provides these elements consistently, the brain treats it as meaningful — even if we intellectually know it is constructed.
This is why stories can comfort us, disturb us, or change us.
Meaning is not created by reality alone.
It is created by experience.
Worlds as Emotional Containers
Fictional worlds act as containers for emotion.
They give fear a shape.
They give grief a story.
They give uncertainty a map.
In everyday life, emotions are often fragmented and unresolved. In stories and games, they are given context.
You may not be able to explain your own anxiety — but you can understand a cursed land, a broken hero, or a world on the brink of collapse.
The world holds the feeling for you.
Agency, Choice, and the Illusion of Control
This is where games, in particular, become powerful.
Games simulate agency.
Even when choices are limited or pre-written, the act of choosing creates psychological ownership. You are no longer just observing — you are participating.
This is why:
- moral decisions in games can linger
- “wrong” choices can cause real discomfort
- certain endings feel earned, even when painful
The mind registers responsibility.
In a safe, fictional space, we are allowed to test versions of ourselves.
Identity Experiments in Disguise
From a psychological perspective, fictional worlds function as identity laboratories.
They allow us to ask questions we cannot easily ask in real life:
- Who am I when no one is watching?
- What am I willing to sacrifice?
- Do my values hold under pressure?
Because the stakes are fictional, the exploration feels safe.
But the emotional responses are not.
That is why people often say:
“This game/book changed me.”
It did not change reality.
It changed self-perception.
Liminal Worlds and Lasting Impact
The worlds that stay with us are rarely perfect or complete.
They are often:
- broken
- ambiguous
- unresolved
- morally uncertain
In other words: liminal.
They exist between hope and despair, meaning and loss, choice and fate.
These worlds mirror the structure of real psychological experience more closely than clean, resolved narratives ever could.
That is why they feel alive.
When Fiction Becomes Personal
At a certain point, the boundary shifts.
A fictional world stops being “something you visit” and becomes something you carry.
You think about it long after the story ends.
You return to it in moments of stress or reflection.
You recognize parts of yourself in it.
This is not escapism.
It is integration.
The Threshold We Keep Returning To
We do not seek fictional worlds because we want to leave reality behind.
We seek them because they offer:
- clarity without simplicity
- emotion without chaos
- meaning without permanence
They exist at a threshold — close enough to reality to matter, distant enough to be explored safely.
A liminal space.
At The Liminal Mind, these worlds are not treated as distractions.
They are treated as mirrors.
In the next texts, we will look more closely at:
- why certain characters feel psychologically “real”
- how darkness in fiction reveals unspoken fears
- and how choice, loss, and identity shape the stories we return to
Some of those explorations will be analytical.
Some will take narrative form.
Because understanding does not always arrive as an answer.
Sometimes it arrives as a story.